Keep 'Em Plowing

The War Food Administration last week hedged against a long war and bad weather.

Farmers were told that the crop goal next year will be 364 million acres, four million acres more than farmers planted this year for the greatest harvest on record.

Six weeks ago farmers were thoroughly alarmed by a dark prediction: since the war was nearly over, the U.S. would be stuck with stockpiles of food that would glut the markets and scuttle prices. Last week WFA decided that this prospect had faded. If the European war runs through the winter, stockpiles of wheat, corn, etc. will soon be down to reasonable sizes. Typical example: in three years the U.S. has consumed 400 million more bushels of corn than it produced.

But more than anything else WFA was wondering about the weather. The U.S. has had seven fat years, three of them yielding record crops. The lean year is overdue. If the weather next year is "just normal" WFA expects food production to average 5 to 10% under 1944.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.